Walking On Broken Glass
by AdenaMentzel
Summary: Eventual Addisex...dealing with Alex rejecting Addison. Inspired by Annie Lennox song, loosely, but not really songfic. Please R
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:** So, this was intended to be Addisex, and will get there, I promise. Please read this story and review!

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Addison's heart broke as the words of disinterest left Alex's mouth. She wasn't sure if she really wanted to be with him or if it was just hormones, but she had built herself up to believe that he was the perfect man for her, and as he clearly voiced his disinterest for a second time, she couldn't help but believe him, even after the most passionate and overall great sex that she had had in a long time.

The first time that Alex had told her that he didn't want her, she had been heartbroken and moped for weeks, on the inside at least, but she had moved on. She had made plans with Mark-- well, if you could call the sixty days plans, she never really expected him to follow through on it, she just needed the assurance that someone loved her enough to make that sort of sacrifice for her-- well, actually, in retrospect those plans had probably grown directly out of the uncertainty that Alex's rejection had caused within her.

If Mark had known that Alex had hurt her in that way, he would have beat him to a pulp. Addison had to admit that even though Mark was a selfish jackass most of the time, he was overprotective of her, even when she wasn't actually with him. She knew that all he really wanted was for her to be happy. The first time that he had cheated on her, he was just testing the waters, she knew, and probably protecting himself. mark was vulnerable, despite his intimidating and whorish exterior, and really, he just wanted to be loved. That being said, he was still too much of a man-whore to ever really change. He was like a retarded Alex Karev in that he had just stopped maturing at around twenty-seven or so.

Honestly, Addison had probably played a large role in Mark's stunted behavioral growth. She wasn't stupid-- she knew that he wanted her, but at that point Derek wanted her, and that was all that she thought she had needed.

Addison didn't know why she had agreed to the pact with Mark. She didn't want to hurt him after all that he had done for her. He deserved to be given a real chance at having a relationship with her-- after all, he had already more than played the role of husband while her actual husband was ignoring her needs. At the same time, however, she couldn't see herself with Mark for the long haul. Surprisingly, she could have seen herself with Alex. She wanted more than anything to have children with Alex Karev (not that she was about to admit that to him).

This feeling was new-- Addison hadn't ever really wanted to have children with Derek, not because of Derek. She had wanted to have children, and Derek was her husband, and Derek would have made a good father. She wanted children with Derek for all of the logical reasons, not because her heart was telling her that it was right. Which was why she didn't have children with Derek Shepherd...especially when after a certain point she wasn't so sure he would make a good father, and she realized several years before her divorce that a child would have bound him to her. He would have felt obligated and wanted to be the good guy, so he would have stayed with her. And the both would have been absolutely miserable.

It was wrong, Addison knew, to want a man ten years her junior to create children with her. It wasn't fair to the man who was still in his days of playing the field. He wasn't ready to have a long lasting and meaningful relationship, as far as Addison could tell, and being the age that she was, she probably wouldn't be able to hold out long enough for him to be prepared-- she had to have a child now if she was ever going to. And she needed to.

It was ridiculous, Addison knew, to expect anything more than sex from Alex. If he had really wanted her, he wouldn't have said the things that he said the first time, and he certainly wouldn't have brushed her off as coolly as he just had. Today had, without a doubt, quickly gone from one of the best to one of the worst of her life. And so she found herself at a crossroads.

Addison Montgomery rarely cried, but as she left Seattle Grace that night, she couldn't prevent the tears from falling. The one reason that she had stayed in Seattle after her divorce, she now admitted, had been Alex Karev. It was stupid, she knew, to be in love with a man so many years her junior, without ever really having been with him or spoken to him outside of their place of work. She had never dated him.

What she had done was seen him at his most vulnerable, working to save the lives of tiny new-born babies. She had seen him grow close to Jane Doe...or Ava...or whatever her name was. She had seen an open heart that was more affectionate and caring than she had seen in a long time-- a warmer side to him that was infinitely more attractive than Mark's, even though the two men had so much in common.

She had also seen that Alex had been hurt deeply in his life, which was why he protected his heart so carefully. He was afraid to let anyone in, and seemed like he didn't even want to let Addison in. He felt a repulsive desire to mask the beautifully sensitive man that she loved with a rough and uncaring exterior, which didn't suit him at all. She wanted to know why he did that, she wanted to know everything that had gone so wrong in his life to make him feel that he needed to hide who he was. She wanted to help him to get past that, and love him like he had never been loved before, because what she felt for him was so much deeper than anything she had ever felt before.

Addison could sense that Alex had been broken-- maybe that came from having been broken so many times herself, having allowed herself to be broken and remain broken despite her how easy it may have been to extract herself from many of the situations in which she found herself. She, like Alex, had learned to wear a mask to fool people into thinking that she was okay, to keep them from prying into painful personal matters that she didn't want to share with anyone, things that were too sensitive, too unspeakable to share with anyone. Her own personal shame.

Addison thought that she knew what Alex had been through-- she had seen too many people like him, most specifically Mark, not to suspect anything. It was a shame, Alex and Mark would have made really good friends if they weren't such cocky assholes. Though she didn't want to admit it, Mark might have done Alex some good. Addison believed that she, herself could have done him some good, until he pushed her away again, that is.

The first time she could forgive. She could understand that he was pushing her away to protect himself, but twice was more than she could handle. She chided herself for believing that he had been flirting with her, that he had been thinking the same thing that as she had been regarding their relationship...she was a middle-aged woman (well, sort of...she was almost forty), for crying out loud, and he was in his prime! He had wanted to fuck her, and now he had, end of story, she was just a conquest. He had made that perfectly clear by viciously shooting her down, and it hurt her more than Derek's years of indifference, more than the look on Derek's face when he had caught her with Mark. It had hurt her more than Mark's admission to having broken the pact on the same day that she had, or the first time he had cheated on her. It had hurt more than when she found out about Derek and Meredith.

In fact, Addison was certain that she had never experienced anything as painful as this before in her life. Perhaps she had never really fallen in love at all, if he husband hadn't been able to hurt her this deeply with all that he did, and this young man, this boy, really, whom she hardly knew, had been able to break her more than she had ever been broken, and she wasn't altogether sure that she could be fully put back together, or even that she wanted to be.

At Addison's age, what was the point of trying anymore? She wasn't going to be able to fall in love with a man who was prepared to give her all of the things that she wanted. By this point it was uncertain if she would even be able to conceive, even though she had seen many successful pregnancies in women older than herself, she had also seen everything that could go wrong. She knew it would be a gamble. Perhaps it was about time to give up on all of her dreams. If she wanted a child, she would have to be proactive about it. And who said she needed a man in her life in order to have a baby? Granted, it would be nice to have someone with whom she could raise a child, but it wasn't absolutely necessary-- she certainly had the means and the determination to do it all on her own.

All of that being so, Addison formulated a plan. The very next morning, she would call Richard and tell him that she was leaving. She was going to California to see one of her best friends and ex-colleagues (who also, and most importantly, did not go by the name of Shepherd) about getting pregnant-- how plausible it would be for her to have a child, and to formally go over the options as a patient, not as a doctor. Generally speaking, she would have skipped that step, but she needed someone to talk it over with, and she could rule out any of her current friends because she didn't want anyone she knew to know about this. She wasn't even sure that she would ever return to her old life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note:** Here's the update. Alex's POV. I hope you like it. Give me any suggestions/crit, but be nice and PLEASE R&R!

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Alex sat in his room in a state of stunned silence. He knew that he should be studying for the upcoming exam, but he couldn't get his mind off of Addison and what he told her. He couldn't believe that he had been as much of an ass towards her as he had, especially when all the while all he wanted to do was jump her right then and there as he had done to her earlier.

But Alex had pushed her away. He had let his fears and anxiety based on everything that Ava had told him get to him, and he didn't know how to deal with it, so instead he had made the same mistake as he had made after she had kissed him.

The sex had been incredible, and had Alex seriously thinking that he wanted to have a relationship with Addison, but when Ava told him that Addison was looking for someone to have children with, someone that she could settle down with, and who would be just the family man that she had been looking for because she was at that stage in her life, Alex had freaked out. He didn't know how to be a father, and he wasn't old enough to be settling down just yet. He still had several years to play the field before he was supposed to settle down.

Actually, in reality, Alex had never thought that he would be the kind of guy to settle down. he figured that he would be like Sloan-- doomed to be a man-whore for the rest of his life, because that was just the kind of guy that he was. He didn't let anybody into his heart, and he certainly never talked about feelings.

Alex, however had found himself getting soft, especially while he was on Addison's service. He was becoming more and more personable, and he had an excellent bedside manner, neither of which he had ever expected to happen. He had let it happen-- he had let Addison see the more vulnerable, sensitive side of him and there was no going back, but he wasn't prepared to open up to her, so he figured it was just safer to push her away. She didn't need to be a part of his life, and he sure as hell wasn't about to share his life fully and completely with another person.

On the one hand, Alex Karev was selfish and he liked to be in it for the chase. He enjoyed sex and passion, but he didn't want to be in it for long haul. There was too much sacrifice in that, and he wasn't ready to do that. Or so he told himself. On the other hand, he was scared to death that he would do something to hurt this already damaged woman, and he didn't think that he would be able to live with himself if he broke Addison Montgomery the way that Derek Shepherd had. He already wanted to kill Shepherd for everything that he had done, and in addition to that, Alex hadn't even dated Addison, but he had managed to hurt her deeply after they kissed by telling her that he wasn't interested in being with her, a fact which couldn't have been farther from the truth.

Miraculously, he and Addison had managed to get past the first time that he had lashed out at her, and Alex was really enjoying where they were. Addison was ridiculously flirtatious around him, and it made him feel comfortable. It felt like this is the way that things were supposed to be, and it scared him because he could have gotten used to being with her like that. Granted, it wasn't like they were in a relationship, but she was certainly reaching out to him, that much was evident. All she wanted was for him to bite, to give her a chance. The first time that he had hurt her earlier that day was by rubbing her deal with Mark in her face, when he could tell that all she wanted was for him to tell her that she mattered to him, and he couldn't do that. He was immature, and he pushed her away again. That had hurt and scared her, which was why she behaved childishly in her own right, screaming at him and then jumping him. She had needed reassurance, she needed to feel that she was desirable, and he had given it to her. He still found it hard to believe that Shepherd had broken her so badly that the slightest rejection made her that scared. But that led to thinking about how much better he could treat her, that he wanted to make everything okay for her, and he got scared. It bothered him for the rest of the day, and explained why he was so mean to her later on.

Finally, Alex gave up all pretenses and closed his books, turning the lights out and lying down in his bed. He could hear Izzie downstairs doing something in the kitchen, but other than that the house was silent. Alex tried to sleep, but no matter how hard he tried, his mind kept going back to the expression on Addison's face when he had snapped at her earlier. If he had had her number, he would have called her and apologized by now, he thought. He had thought of going over to the hotel that she was staying in, but thought the better of it, because he might come off too desperate or like a stalker, and in addition he figured that he should give her some space because she would clearly still be hurt and probably needed some time to calm down. So instead, he lay there, thinking about what he would tell her when he saw her the next day at the hospital. He wanted to go up to her and apologize first thing in the morning, so he planned out what he would say in his head. He went through it over and over again as he tried to fall asleep, but nothing was working. Even having a plan wasn't good enough-- he wanted to do something about it now.

The worst part of what he had said was seeing the way that her posture changed as she left. It wasn't that noticeable, unless you really paid attention, or maybe he was reading to much into it, but he could swear that her head wasn't held quite as high as she walked out that door, and though physically maybe nothing had changed, she just seemed deflated. And to think that she had been so cheerful when she walked up to him, hoping to make something of the night, which had still been young. He hadn't been afraid to just burst her bubble and tell her that she wasn't his girlfriend. He wished that his tone had been kinder, that there had been humor in his eyes at the very least, that she could have known that he didn't mean the things that were coming out of his mouth, and that what he wanted more than anything was to take back every single thing that he had said to her, to kiss it and make it better.

Alex knew that he had cut her down, and that it was going to take a lot to get her back to where they had been before that scene. He wanted to think of a way of getting her to trust him not to hurt her again, because he could tell that she was bleeding. She had looked happier that night than he had seen her in...probably as long as he had known her, and he had just wiped the smile off of her face, leaving in its wake anguish that he could not describe. He could tell that for her, his words had realized her greatest fear and something within her seemed to have died. He could have been overreacting, but there was also a chance that he hadn't been imagining things, and in that case, he needed to make things right. He didn't want to lose her.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: Please R&R!

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It was five o'clock in the morning when Addison Montgomery's hotel room was called. She was already packed and ready to leave town. Her flight was set to leave in four hours, and she was just about finished getting ready to leave when the phone rang, all she needed to do was finish her hair and makeup, and she would be on her way. 

When the man on the other end told her that a Dr. Alex Karev was there to see her, she didn't know what to think. She could not think of a single thing that Alex could want from her. He had made it perfectly clear that he didn't want to be with her, and she didn't think that he would have come to the hotel just to kick her when she was down. She sighed and told the man with whom she was speaking to allow Alex up to her room.

Addison managed to finish her hair before there was a knock at the door. She put the hairdryer down and cautiously walked over to the door, unlatching it and opening it slowly. She found Alex pacing nervously in the hallway, looking like he hadn't slept at all, and that confused her to no end. She cleared her throat and his head snapped around quickly. He was clearly embarrassed at having been caught out of his element, and she almost feels bad for him. She ushers him in silently, closing the door behind herself.

He quickly scans the room with his eyes, and when his eyes finally meet hers she is overwhelmed by the fear and hurt that she finds there. She opens and closes her mouth, uncertain as to what to say. She feels an urge to apologize, though she doesn't know for what. He is eyeing her suitcases again, nervously, clearly uncomfortable.

"I…uh…are you going somewhere?" he asks, trying to appear to be nonchalant, but failing miserably. His voice comes out anxious and fearful. She looks at him incredulously and nods.

"I'm going to L.A." He looks briefly puzzled for a moment and nods slowly. She smirks. "What's so weird about me going there?" He shrugs.

"I don't know. It's kind of…bright and sunny…not…black and…"

"Dreary?" She supplies. "I'm glad you think I am such a happy person." She says, a bit more viciously than intended.

"I just meant…it's no New York." She cringes at his mention of the city that she used to love. He senses her discomfort and attempts to change the topic. "So…uh…you going for a conference or something?" She shifts awkwardly.

"I'm going to visit friends…or it might be something more." She refuses to meet his gaze. He can sense that she's not exactly telling the truth. He moves to catch her gaze, forcing her to look at him. The pain that he sees in her eyes and intense, and it hurts him to know that he contributed to it. He also found something else in her eyes.

"You're moving there?" He practically screams. She shrugs.

"It's possible. Probable, actually. It's not like I have a reason to stay here." She's avoiding his eyes again. He reaches out to touch her arm, but she moves away. He can tell that she is struggling to keep herself together, and he knows that he is making it difficult for her. He also knows that the only way to get her to crack is to be persistent. He takes another step towards her, placing his hands on her shoulders firmly, but not enough to hurt her, as clearly that would be counterproductive. It hurts him when she grimaces at his touch. He can see the tears in her eyes as she tries to push him away.

"I'm sorry," he states simply. She is still reluctant to let her guard down without a fight. He forces her to look him in the eye again so that she can see his sincerity. "I am so sorry Addison. I shouldn't have hurt you." He can see anger in her eyes.

"What makes you think I'm even interested?" she growls. His eyes soften.

"Addison…please…I know I was stupid. I was mean, and I didn't mean to be." She suppresses a sob.

"It's okay. You don't want me, and that's all there is to it. Really, I'm glad that you didn't try to sugar-coat it for me. It's fine." The single tear that has managed to escape contradicts her words, and his heart breaks just a little bit more.

"Listen to me. I'm sorry that I hurt you, but I'm also sorry that I pushed you away. That was the last thing that I wanted to do." She is about to make a snappy remark when she sees the sincerity in his eyes. Instead, the tears that she has been fighting to hold back stream down her face.

"Why did you do it?"

"I was scared…and stupid. I'm not good at commitment, and you definitely deserve better than I can offer. I don't want to break you. And I know that you want to settle down, but I wasn't sure that I could give that to you." The tears come faster now, and her body trembles slightly.

Alex takes a chance, wrapping her in his arms, and to his delight, she melts into the embrace, allowing herself to cry on his shoulder. He traced soft circles on her back, soothing her and continuing to apologize. After several minutes, Addison tenses and looks at the clock.

"Alex, I really need to get to the airport. _Now._" He looks panicked.

"Are you coming back?" She sighs.

"Do I have a reason to?" He smirks.

"Dude, Montgomery, of course you do. I'll be here." A wide smile spreads across her face. His expression mirrors hers, and he wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her closer. Her eyes are glazed with desire, and inwardly he chuckles. She is delighted that he is taking initiative, convincing her that he really wants this, unlike the disaster that their first kiss was or when she jumped him. He leans in and kisses her firmly on the lips, his tongue pleads for entrance into her mouth, which she grants eagerly, aroused by how forward he is. They break apart, gasping for breath, and he moves away from her, keeping his hands on her hips. "Addison, you better get going if you're gonna make that flight." She sighs.

"Yeah, I guess." She is confused when he grabs one of her bags and carries it for her. "Karev, what are you doing?" He rolls his eyes.

"I'm taking you to the airport."

"Oh really?" she asks, raising and eyebrow somewhat flirtatiously. He grins crookedly planting a quick kiss on her lips.

"Yeah. Now let's go." She smiles.

"Yeah, _let's_." She reiterates, enjoying the feeling of being part of an "us" again, her smile growing wider, if that were possible.


End file.
